The Big Blue House and our Questionable Future

We moved to California in August 2003 into the same house where we live now. We've been here for nine years! That's the longest I have ever lived in the same house in my entire life! While living here, we raised two teenage girls, had two more baby girls, hosted two exchange students, had two baby grandsons, and I got my Bachelor's degree. It's been great!

For years now we've been looking for a bigger better newer house that would better suit our large family. This search has been difficult and we only found one home that really fit the bill and our budget at the same time. We were totally in love with that house, still are, but right at the last minute before funding, the sellers backed out and we didn't get the house.  We haven't seen another one like it, so the search to improve continued but without much enthusiasm.

Earlier this summer, my husband was having coffee and checking things on his computer, just a sleepy summer morning around here. Suddenly, he was yelling for me to come quick so I ran out to see what was the matter and he showed me what he found online.

Our house was for sale.

Not the dream house here, but the dream house we built in South Dakota. The house we lived in before we moved here. The very same house! Our house!

Karma? Fate? God, is that you?

We decided to call the realtor and just inquire, find out what the story is, get the scoop, have a friendly chat. That phone call quickly turned into an offer. The realtor thought our interest in buying our old house back was pretty cool! She was a little surprised at first to have a guy from California on the phone who knew so much about the house and didn't need to see it to put in a firm offer. There was already an offer on the house and another offer came in after ours. Three total.  We were put into a wait-and-see mode, typical house buying game.

After being on the market for two whole days, the sellers considered the offers and accepted ours!

While on vacation, we stopped to see our new old house. The front door still had the knocker on it engraved with our name. Whoa! We met with the realtor and a friend and had a tour. The memories were good inside of those walls and it really felt like home. The people who bought it from us, and now selling it to us, finished the basement very nicely. They also added a back deck and finished the landscaping. In fact, they made all the home improvements in the same way we envisioned before we sold the house. Mind readers! How great is that!

Click here for photos and information about the house from nine years ago when we moved out.
Click here for photos from this past summer when we went to see the house.

We jumped through all of the lending and funding hoops, and closed the loan. The property is now ours again. Now what? Jobs?

We will need jobs! Keith has a pretty good shot at becoming employed at his previous school, but nothing is concrete right now. Plus, he has his job here. Keith is teaching here and teachers do not simply give a 2 week notice and move on. Job offers and contracts usually come out in Feb/March, which means job openings are posted in March/April; we won't know until spring if Keith can get a contract to teach at the school there (if there is a position available). I will have to work full time to live there, which means I need a resume and start a new career search.

We can keep ownership of the house as an investment or we can move into it. The decision  has not been made yet and won't be made until we have a teaching contract signed for either a California job or a South Dakota job next spring.

My guess is that his old school will make him an offer of some sort; I hope it is reasonable. If so, I imagine that we will move in June after the school year ends. Like I said, that is tentative until contracts come out. Such is the life of a teacher.

We don't want to give the impression that we think a teaching job will just be handed to us like we're entitled or something. We are realistic and we know the risk. But, we wanted to buy our house back just in case it does work out. We also do not want the house purchase to serve as a termination notice to his current employer. We don't want to count our chickens before they hatch, but it is nice to be sitting on a nest. We'll just enjoy keeping the eggs warm for a while and see what happens. Either way, we have a home to live in and an investment home. Win-win.

If we do move back home, it will be pretty cool to have our littlest girls living in the same house that we built before they were born. Their big sisters lived there and the little ones will go to the same school that their older sisters attended. Some of the same teachers are still there! We will live closer to family and we have lots of good friends there already. We will miss California, but we'll always have our friends here and a fabulous vacation destination! I will have to learn to drive in the snow again, yuck. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

In the meantime, we are done with our house search! We own a nice house in California where life is good and we own a nice house in South Dakota where life is good. We are very blessed!

I'll update you in March or April and let you know where we will be living and working.

The Ikea Project

I made it my mission for the day to clean up my kitchen and dining room. After getting the kids off to school and downing a half a pot of coffee, I went to the kitchen to tackle the problem of the day. I went in there and just looked around and thought, "ugh". And then I spied it, the real reason my kitchen never feels good.

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I don't know who designed this house, but it was obviously a man who didn't appreciate his wife. There is a "breakfast nook" that honestly shouldn't be there. It should be cabinet and counter space. I have a nice large kitchen but everything is crammed into one corner and the rest of the space is poorly designed. We use the breakfast table (it came with the house) as a counter and we've stacked the microwave and pizza oven on it. Then, we added a "snack table" next to it for cereal and chips and all that sort of thing. There is never room for it in the cabinets. Sure, it works, but it's not pretty.

And then I turned to look at the dining room. The table is covered with Kindergarten homework, crayons, markers, etc. The kid really needs her own space to study. She can have Fenna's desk and chair next year, but in the meantime  her mess might drive me crazy. I had no idea Kindergarten would require a study space at home. The world has changed and I did not plan for it.

Just looking at my messes inspired me. Finally. Sometimes inspiration takes too long. I should have thought of this years and years ago! I'll run to Ikea and buy a cabinet! And a little table and chairs set for homework and little tea parties. What time is it? Yes! I can make it! Libby, put your shoes on!

Off we went to Ikea.  It's an hour long drive on a good day, so if we are lucky and don't get in any traffic jams we should be able to get there, shop, have lunch and drive home in time to pick up the girls from school. Score!

And that's how it happened. I bought a kitchen cabinet, a desk and a chair. The little table and chairs sets were too small for my tall Kindergartener.

Little did I know that Ikea things come in hundreds of pieces. And they take hours to assemble. Days, actually. And tools. Tools! I don't know how to work tools! To top it off, Ikea assembly instructions have no words, just a picture booklet. I needed help. Keith is gonna love me for this!

Keith spent two days putting together the cabinet. He understood the instructions and got that puzzle put together! It's so nice!

I put together the desk. It also took me two days. I spent $20 on the desk and it took at least 20 hours to assemble. I ended up with four extra pieces and a lot of extra screws and gizmos. Keith says there shouldn't be any extra pieces or screws. Well, there were. I had holes that didn't line up! I followed the instructions, but it still happened that I got four pieces attached upside down resulting in screwholes in all the wrong places and no screwholes in the right places. Since Keith told me to glue as I went, I couldn't take it apart and start over. Oh well, it seems solid enough without all of the extra parts. The kid is going to do her homework on it, not jump around on it; it is solid enough.

The chair was hard to put together too! I spent a few hours wrestling with it, but after crying for help it finally came together. Thanks, Keith.

The Ikea projects are done. They look great and they work great! But, the sink is still full of dirty dishes.

My House isn't Photogenic

We are taking in a foreign exchange student next school year and our host family application asks for photos of our house.  Well, darn, my house just isn't photogenic!  I have lots of photos, but they all look chaotic and messy. Funny how I think my house is nice and neat and then I take a picture and immediately think the room looks chaotic in the photo.

Since the photos I need to submit are for an application, it feels like I need to submit showroom type pictures of my house.  I'm being judged.  We've already been approved and we already have open communication with the student and her family, but still... this is stressing me out.

Photos I need to submit are:
1. Front of the house.  We have no grass.  Our little bitty patch of front yard is complete dirt, it has a few weeds growing in it. We had a big giant tree ripped out of the front and for some reason, my husband is not too quick about getting the grass growing again. I would plant some grass seeds, but he said something about wanting to till it up some more to get out more of the tree roots. I don't know; it's his project and I believe he's forgotten all about it. The hedges need to be trimmed too. They aren't overgrown, they are just not neat.  The house looks like an abandoned foreclosure the way it is. Luckily, I found an old photo of the front of the house, it looks very nice and really, the house hasn't changed, just the grass.

2. The family.  Oh, Good one! I have a great photo of the four of us taken less than a year ago by a professional! We all look great too!

3.  Living room or Family Room:  Oh boy.  The living room looks cluttered because we have the tv and movies and all of that electronic junk exposed.  Toys on the floor, or in the little basket I keep in the living room for stray toys.  When it gets full, I take it to the toy room and dump it into a toy box; next thing you know, it's full again. Toys are always migrating to the living room.  Blankets, pillows, coffee cups, remotes, box of kleenex, books, etc.  We like to be comfy when we watch TV.  When I get my living room all clean, then you can see the saggy furniture.  We were going to buy a new couch, but decided to wait until the littlest one is completely potty trained.  Why risk it with new furniture?


The Family room looks good. Except for the Christmas decorations that I just realized are still sitting at the very top of the bookcase. What? How did I not see that before?  And we have a  big piece of styrofoam stuck in our fireplace to block out the cold air that shoots down the chimney every night. Gee, that looks lovely in a photo.

Student's bedroom:  Oh, easy, it's clean and pretty!  Oh wait, no it isn't.  I recently decided to clean out the stuffed closet in that room and pulled everything out. Of course I was interrupted a million times; this project is still in progress.  Currently, it looks like the closet exploded. I shoved everything to the side and managed to take a picture of the good half of the bedroom.  They want the picture to include the bedroom window, so it worked out. I need to buy a bed frame for this bed, we had one but when we rearranged the bedrooms, the frame went under a different bed and we ended up with a bed and frame that do not match.  Ooops.

Student's Bathroom:  Heehee, this should be funny.  The student will be sharing a bathroom with the little girls.  I tidied up the bathroom, which was nothing more than picking up the Dora panties and making sure the toilet was flushed.  Otherwise, it looked pretty good.  I left the toys in the tub and the Princess potty seat attached to toilet. I tried to show the floor, sink and countertop and the pretty light fixture, but couldn't get all of it in one picture.  The room is small, it's not like you can back up and get a good shot of the whole thing.

Kitchen:  Oh my stars! Really?  My kitchen is in constant chaos! There are always dishes in the sink, dishes in the drainboard, stuff on the counter, toys on the floor, the mess is in constant motion.  Pick up one thing and another thing is set out.  I don't have enough cupboard space for all of the food and all of the dishes, which leads to a continuous rotation of what's out and what's behind closed cupboard doors.   This is going to take some work to get a nice photo of my kitchen.

Other 1 & 2:  Hmm, I suppose I can submit a photo of the back yard, and then what? The man room would be good because it is full of guitars and drums and computers and such.  Teenagers like that.  How about my clutter filled garage?   The toy room?  oh, I know!  The Stairs!  I think I'll take a pic of the dining room, that should take care of it.  If I do that, I need to clean the wall of mirrors.  Who puts up a wall that is completely a mirror anyway?  That does it, an old picture of the back yard (because it never looks good in the winter when we don't water very much), and the dining room taken at an angle where you can't see into the living room at the saggy old couch in the mirror. No, wait, a picture of Sandy and a picture of the big sisters! That'll be better. Yeah, that's it.

It wasn't this picture, but now I can't find the one I sent in. Hmmm.  Or maybe I can't remember what I sent in, that might be it.

My house is being lived in. The application doesn't specify that the photos are supposed to be showroomific, but I assume they should look like magazine pictures.  I would love to live in a perfectly neat and tidy home all the time, but it just doesn't work like that.

This is really putting me in the mood to declutter and get rid of stuff!  Maybe I'll start with my forgotten Christmas decorations on top of the bookcase. Most of them are gifts given to my husband from his students, dollar store knick-knacks. 

I'm off to clean another room and take a photo worthy of the application!  Which doesn't even matter because our student has already seen a bunch of photos of our family and our house, just not empty rooms like this. Can you tell I'm sort of stressing about these pictures? I'm just rambling!

Oh well, only 3 more months in this house anyway. And then we'll have a bigger house with more room for the kids and furniture and dishes and things. So why am I submitting pictures?

I am in Love!

I am in love with this house!

We have been flirting with the idea of upgrading for a few years now, but we just never find "the house".  We have a pretty nice house now, so it is hard to find one bigger and better in a great neighborhood, then we give up looking.  Recently, my husband started looking again.  I gave him my typical response, the eyeroll.

But this time he did it.  He found a wonderful house on a wonderful street and it is just all sorts of wonderful!  Now comes the  hard part... buying it.  It costs money. There's always a catch isn't there?

We got pre-approved for a loan on the assumption that my husband won't ever get a pink slip. Maybe he should start teaching math! Math teachers never get fired! Then we put an offer on the house. We made the first offer and there haven't been any others, so hopefully the seller's bank will accept it. It is a short sale so negotiations are at the mercy of the bank.

It's such a rigged game.  Buying a house, especially a short sale house, is really tricky.  You have to have your timing just right, have just the right realtor and listing agent pairing, and you have to remember that not all houses on the market are really up for sale.  A lot of realtors and/or banks have the buyers hand picked already.  We're just hoping that we finally are the chosen ones.  Time will tell.

Apparently, with a short sale, waiting is something we'll have to learn how to do well. Not sure why they take so darn long, but it is common for a short sale to take 6 - 8 months to change hands. Let's just keep hoping that we'll be moving into that beautiful house in 6 months or so!

The house is a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom with a beautiful back yard.  The back and one side is bordered with a wooded walking path. Very nice!  The kitchen has the worst countertop, ugh, the popular small white tiles.  I have no idea why that style countertop is so popular for kitchens around here.  Who wants a zillion grout lines in their kitchen?  Not me!  I spill my coffee once in a while!  I got new countertops, stovetop, sink and faucet for Mother's Day and I told my husband if we get this  house we'll have to have Mother's Day again.  Otherwise, I love it.

The part of the house that was really important to me is the laundry room.  Who would have ever thought that a laundry room would be so darn important?  But, it is. Right now my washer and dryer sit in a small breezeway between the house and garage, which is very close to the front door.  When I do laundry (daily) I am in this tiny little space with the machines, the two doors both open into the laundry area, and my mountain of dirty laundry is piled right by the front door.  It never fails, someone will knock on my door the day I decide to catch up on laundry.  Knock. Knock.  Hello, come in. This is my pile of dirty laundry.  ugh, drives me crazy!  And this is why I want a laundry area that has elbow room and isn't right by the front door or in the busy traffic lane.

The house is only a mile and a half from where we currently live. Wish us luck!  I have no idea when we'll know anything other than "maybe" which is all we know now.  The realtor said not to get my hopes up too much and to have a plan B.  Ummm, did you see that place?  My hopes are UP, baby, UP!